Politics, Religion, and the Battle of Hastings

(First published in the Bali Advertiser, March 28, 2007)

“ … and they shall fight every one against his brother, and every one against his neighbor; city against city, and kingdom against kingdom.” – Isaiah 19:2

My younger brother and I have been having one of our periodic e-mail discussions. It is curious for us both, and frustrating, to be so at odds over so many things. Now that we are men, we can’t agree on anything, if we ever did. Maybe we assumed when we were younger that we saw the world the same and just got on with our young man hi-jinks, more concerned with firecrackers, football, and the girls next door than any minor disagreement on philosophies and politics.

Nowadays, he says, “Rush,” and I say, “Bilge.” I say “Coulter,” and he says, “She’s not a freak.”

It’s fairly predictable how the exchange is going to go, but we keep at it, I suppose, to dig out some understanding of where the other fellow went wrong. We try to keep it civil, although sometimes we slip into the verbal roughhousing that is the privilege of brothers. I would say it’s probably better we leave the disagreements to e-mail, with distance and differing time zones keeping the exchanges from being in-our-face confrontations.

What worries me is that our disagreements are over many of the issues and personalities separating political and cultural sides in America today, and if even brothers can see things at such extremes – I won’t say opposites – it gives little hope of any pragmatic compromise that will mend the rifts in the American landscape. We two, at least, will stop somewhere short of bloodshed, but not all siblings and families restrain themselves, and it is increasingly difficult to believe that mere American countrymen will stop short of tearing each other limb from limb.

One problem between my brother and me is that it is a family trait that none of the LeRois are ever wrong. If not infallible, we are correct 99.99 percent of the time. It is insufferable of us, I know, but trust me on this: we are almost always right. And even if I’m agnostic, and unsure of what it is possible to know, and doubt it possible to be right about anything at all, one thing of which I’m absolutely sure is that I’m right to be agnostic. Maybe you can see how it goes.

That’s certainly how it goes in American today, with snorts and sighs and eye-rolls replacing argument and counter-argument, because one side’s assumptions are so antithetical to what the other side believes. For two sides to argue intelligently and intelligibly, there has to be some mutual axiomatic groundwork and a common logic. And in America now, there is neither, leaving each side only the innate ability to send the other into howling, rabid madness – and then both sides claim it is the other that is fit for straightjacket and Bedlam, and the other guys always started it first anyway, and took it to new depths of slime-slinging and vitriol, and don’t have a sense of humor about these things in any case.

Lest anyone make the complaint that I am only complaining without offering any solutions, I now outline my plan for the reconciliation of America.

First, Americans must be made to understand this is not reality TV. They will have to turn off their TVs, computers, laptops, Palm Pilots and Blackberrys, and leave their digital cameras, hand-phones, and video camcorders at home. Then all across America, people will be required to meet in their town parks and village squares and the other common areas hardly anybody uses anymore (I might require them to walk to the parks). Local police will be on hand to screen citizens for guns, knives, and other American necessities and accessories to keep the exercise as safe as possible.

The sides will be chosen up. It is not really important how or by what criterion, only that the sides are roughly equal, much like the split in the popular voting in the last few presidential elections. And if there aren’t enough Blues in some Red districts, or enough pagans in a Southern Baptist town, or enough whatever wherever, then we could have a whatever town in, say, Texas, line up against a something-else village of equal size in, say, Rhode Island (or even against Rhode Island if it is a rather large Texas town).

Then, with the sides lined up in equal numbers, and the mud pit deemed ready by the authorities, an honoree, preferably a veteran, will blow the whistle and the two teams will re-enact the Battle of Hastings a la Monty Python. Handbags are allowed only as long as they aren’t full of bricks.

I’m not 100 percent certain it will work, even being a LeRoi, but it is the only logical course of action to relieve the tension and suspicion that has crept into even the mildest of political and cultural disagreements in America. And if Americans are worried it would make them look silly in the eyes of the world, I’ve got news for them.

Copyright © 2007 Lee Roy LeRoi

Don’t Smoke, Smoke, Smoke that Cigarette!

(First published in Bali Advertister, March 14, 2007)

“Ciga-reets and whiskey and wild, wild women, they’ll drive you crazy, they’ll drive you insane.”

I wrote in August 2005 about smoking my last cigarette from my last pack. It was a damned lie. The last cigarette didn’t come until March 7 of 2006, and it has been a year now since I’ve ingested any nicotine from any ‘delivery device’ that I was personally smoking.

I have passed all the tests. The brothers have come for a visit. I have been out with old drinking buddies who still smoke like Sumatran forest fires. I have been in pubs where nobody knew me, where nobody knew I had quit smoking, and where I could have had a cigarette or two or a pack and nobody in my circle (or my wife) would have been the wiser. I didn’t light up.

Urges still hit me, but it’s enough to stop me just thinking of having to reset the count to day one. And, yes, I really do mark off each day without a cigarette with a big fat ‘zero’, adding the days up into weeks and months, counting down the days to the one-year mark on my calendar. Sometimes, it’s enough to redeem a day in which nothing has been accomplished just to think, “I made it through another day not smoking.”

I like not smoking. I can get on the bike for a pedal into Ubud, and come back up the rising roads to home without collapsing on arrival. My clothes do not smell like an ashtray; my wife says neither does my breath. She says I look healthier and ‘fresh’. Maybe quitting won’t make me live any longer, but I enjoy life more and it costs me less – especially since a drop in alcohol intake has come along with the no-smoking policy with no extra effort.

For the most part, I do not play the part of the righteous reformed smoker. It doesn’t bother me if smokers smoke in my presence – as long as they don’t do so while I am eating, as long as they don’t fire up in my house before I have a chance to steer them to the garden. I never smoked in non-smoker’s houses when I was a smoker and don’t mean to allow anyone to smoke in mine. I also never smoked around children, and I expect people to show my son the same courtesy.

I do recognize that some people can smoke sensibly. One of my brothers for instance has smoked one or two cigarettes daily for years, and a big night for him in a pub might mean three cigarettes. I can’t do that. The only sensible option for me was to quit, and (Glory Hallelujah!) I have now been smoke-free for 12 months. Let the non-smoking celebratory dance begin. (Look, Ma, no wheezing!)

Below are some suggestions that might help any smokers trying to quit. They are tricks I found useful.

Make up your mind that you are a non-smoker. Don’t be swayed from this idea by a relapse or two or three. I became a non-smoker in August of 2005. It just didn’t take complete hold until March 8 of 2006.
Keep a daily count of the number of cigarettes you smoke. Don’t make a big thing out of it. Don’t tell yourself that because you smoked three yesterday, you have to smoke only two today. Just keep a count of how many sticks you smoke, and how much you spend on cigarettes. If you’ve really made up your mind to quit, the numbers will go down.
Talk to people who have quit and managed to stay quit. They will encourage you.
When you do smoke, go hide in the garden like you should be ashamed. You should.
If you have kids, consider whether you want them growing up thinking that smoking is a cool thing that Mommy or Daddy does.
Don’t fool yourself that you can limit it to weekends, to pubs, to trips away from home, to one cigarette a day. Most people can’t.
Most importantly, just stop, and keep stopping, for as long as you can, after each cigarette, after each pack, until you’ve finally quit for good.

I had my first cigarette when I was in the second grade. A neighbor caught my older brother and me smoking on the roof of the house and traumatized us with the fact that “your parents may not know, but God knows.” I then had a few cigarettes in the seventh grade, and sensibly quit again until I was 25, when I took it up again ‘only’ to keep me awake while driving a truck for an oil company. I ended up smoking an average of 10 cigarettes a day for 20 years.

Now I’ve quit again and stuck with it for a year. You do the same.

Copyright © 2007 Lee Roy LeRoi